


Cast a Long, Dark Shadow

by AsheRhyder



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsheRhyder/pseuds/AsheRhyder
Summary: Jack will never forgive himself for not noticing it the first time a prisoner dies while in the new Overwatch's custody. He knows the signs better than anyone alive: Gabriel taught him how to see the invisible fingerprints Blackwatch left behind. But someone is cutting off his access to the old Blackwatch records, and to manage that, there needs to be an active commander in the field...





	

    Jack doesn’t notice it at first, an oversight for which he’ll never really forgive himself. It’s not his fault; there are a million reasons why he doesn’t pick up on it the very first time a prisoner dies in captivity. The new team is spread thin across the globe responding to threats. He wasn’t even on the same continent when it happened. He’s worked alone for so long that he’s forgotten how to keep an eye on an entire organization at once. And, most damningly, there’s no record of anything happening in Athena.

 

    There are clues buried in the ravages of time, over the year and a half since the Recall, slipping under the mire of chaos that comes with restarting Overwatch. Pieces of dangerous tech irreparably damaged, a set of revolutionary but incautious research notes lost in a power surge. One prisoner dying in captivity, two more escaping, never to be heard from again. Things like that are unfortunately easy to dismiss as unavoidable issues plaguing a reformed institution.

 

    Jack knows they’re excuses. Good ones, but excuses all the same. He remembers Gabriel far too clearly to forget the utter absence of a calling card that marks a Blackwatch operation.

 

    The best Blackwatch jobs -- if such actions as theirs deserved any kind of praise -- were the early ones, when Gabriel had the most control of both his temper and his team. Jack only knows about those missions because Gabriel told him in person. They don’t exist in any record, print or digital, only in the whispered words pressed against Jack’s skin like a confession.

 

    _‘Forgive me the things I do in your name. Amen.’_

 

    Gabriel told him, back then, what to look for. How to find the invisible fingerprints he left behind in a world that wanted him to disappear, but wouldn’t let him stop working. Seeing them again, realizing he’s been missing them, is like losing Gabriel all over again.

 

    Jack digs into the records once the third prisoner ‘escapes’. As the saying goes, “Three times is enemy action.” Getting in is easy; all the old passwords and overrides still work. He’ll have to have a talk with Winston about the security when he’s finished. Going through the reports is slower. It’s like an optical illusion, trying to see the shape of something that isn’t actually there. Coincidences compile past the point of credulity.

    Overwatch doesn’t tend to take prisoners - they don’t have the authority to prosecute anymore - but sometimes there are survivors who have to be handled, interrogations to be run, or debates on the proper authority to alert. The latest gunrunner gave them a lead to a major cache of the Los Muertos’ supply before disappearing; it worries Jack that he talked first, then ran.

    It worries him more that there’s no footage from the cell for the two hours around the time of the escape.

 

    A little more digging reveals similar circumstances around the previous escape. The only visible death in custody was a pustule of a human being held for interrogation on human and Omnic trafficking, who apparently had a heart attack in the hour that the cameras blacked out. Requests for supplemental records prove fruitless.

    “I’m sorry, Soldier:76,” Athena says when he asks her. “I have no record of any Overwatch activity matching this time/date period. Would you like to try rephrasing your request?”

    The wording confirms it for him. It’s exactly what Athena used to say when Gabriel was working on something he didn’t want Jack to see. He’d come slinking back when the job was done, smelling of industrial strength soap and the slow tarnish of the human soul, and he’d make his confession into the hollow of Jack’s throat, but he’d never let him _see_.

 

    “Athena,” Jack asks, “do you have any recorded Blackwatch activity matching this time/date stamp?”

    Athena pauses unnecessarily for an artificial intelligence. It’s as close as she can give to confirmation.

    “I’m sorry, Soldier:76. You don’t have clearance for that request.”

    “Do you have _any_ record of _any_ Blackwatch activity?”

    “I’m sorry, Soldier:76. You don’t have clearance for that request.”

    “Damn it all to Hell, this is Strike-Commander Jack Morrison, authorization code M-76-3246-J-489.”

    “Authorization code acknowledged.”

    “Is there any Blackwatch activity going on or not?”

    “I’m sorry, Strike-Commander, you don’t have authorization for this request.”

 

    Jack’s blood runs cold. Only one person ever had the ability to counter his access to Blackwatch’s files, but even during the worst days, Gabriel never outright denied him. Jack had looked through them after the explosion at Swiss HQ to try and find some closure for Gabriel’s death and everything else that went wrong along the way. To be denied now…

    To be denied now means that Blackwatch has an active commander in the field, one who can give the order to wipe out records and lock down files on the highest level.

 

    “Gabriel.” The name falls from Jack’s scarred lips like an orison. “Is it Gabriel?”

    “I’m sorry, Strike-Commander. You don’t have authorization for this request.”

    “Damn it, Athena--”

    “Would you like to make another request?”

 

    AI aren’t programmed to get impatient, so they have no need to interrupt. For her to press him in that manner jars Jack out of his fouling temper, and he takes a moment to think.

 

    Well, if Omnics can find enlightenment, who’s to say the Overwatch AI can’t develop a sneaky streak and a set of priorities on her own?

 

    Jack probably ought to be more worried that the computer has learned subterfuge, but given how much time she spends with Winston, he can’t bring himself to be too concerned. Winston’s moral compass is untarnished by cynicism, something Jack envies on his worse days.

 

    “Athena,” Jack says, much calmer and with the beginnings of a plan. “I’m going to do an alpha-priority test on the security systems and recording archives. Please inform me whenever you shut down a camera, audio feed, or biometric scanner, or whenever you delete footage, so I can account for it being offline.”

    “Systems check acknowledged. Duration?”

    “Indefinite,” Jack says.

    Two can play at this game.

  


    Three weeks later, Jack is just back from a nightmare mission in Dorado, trying to separate the memories of the distant past from those of the painfully recent. There are too many dead children in both, too many lives that could have been saved if they only got there sooner or acted faster. Jack can’t recall if the girl with the flower in her hair was from the Omnic Crisis or the showdown with Los Muertos, or if the boy in the jersey died from a Bastion unit’s gattling or a gang member’s semi-automatic.

    There’s four Los Muertos in the cells because Jack and Winston argued about what to do with them long enough that they started to come around from the wounds they sustained thus far, at which point Jack’s argument for execution seemed excessively cruel. Four members of a gang that hid behind children, still alive when the innocent died. Jack can’t sleep too well with that knowledge, which is why he’s awake when Athena hails him.

    “Strike-Commander,” she says. “The cameras in and around the holding cells have been shut down, and the security footage of the grid is being scrubbed.”

    “Acknowledged.”

    Jack gets up, gets dressed, and gets armed. He’s not ready to meet hope without a gun in his hand, not without the confession whispered into his skin to go with it.

 

    He goes down to the cells. Whoever’s down there works fast and efficiently. There’s a hover cart silently waiting in the hall with two bodies between tarps. Jack lifts the corner of one and sees the faces of the Los Muertos members, twisted and discolored from asphyxiation. Their necks bear the tell-tale burns of a garrotte; Jack listens and hears the faint sounds of a fading struggle. He slides silently up to the third cell and finds the door ever so slightly ajar, just enough for him to glimpse inside and see a sliver of the broad, strong back of a man in a black jacket.

    Jack’s breath turns to oil in his lungs, coating everything in toxic apprehension as questions fill his mind like sparks. His soul burns as hope flares through him. His lips trace Gabriel’s name, but he can’t get air to force it out, can’t ask how he survived or where he’s been or why he’s back haunting this pale imitation of the thing they built.

    The man in black pulls his garrotte tighter around the neck of the unlucky Los Muertos member, and the struggle finally stops. The man in black waits another moment, just to be sure. Jack remembers the brutal efficiency of the man who held the front line in the Omnic Crisis, and his hope paralyzes him.

    He wants to call out, he wants to reach out, he wants to grasp and cling and never let go. He can do nothing, because as much as he thinks and hopes and wants it to be true, the word on his heart is still “if”.

    “If” it’s true.

    “If” it’s Gabriel.

    “If.”

 

    The man in black turns around, and Jack’s heart extinguishes like a fire starved of air. How could he have been so blind?

 

    McCree always did have a habit of dressing up like his heroes.

 

    McCree freezes when he sees Jack. The Los Muertos corpse in his grasp is damning, inarguable evidence. The cool, flat look in his eyes says he knows and doesn’t care.

    “Athena,” he drawls, the only part of him that doesn’t seem like an impersonation of Gabriel. “I thought I gave you instructions to keep these ops hush-hush.”

    “You did, Commander,” says Athena, and if an AI can sound snippy, she does. “I have not mentioned any Blackwatch operations to any Overwatch members.”

    “Then do you mind explaining why I’ve got one of them staring at me like I just spat on his momma’s grave?”

    “Perhaps he doesn’t approve of the way you handle the prisoners.” Athena says.

    Jesse’s cool fractures, and dark anger seeps through the cracks.

    “You can lecture me on my rusty moral compass when you have to carry dead children to their crying parents and can actually empathize with their loss,” he growls. “Until then, kindly shove your electronic high horse back into your digital ivory tower and make sure everyone else keeps their noses in their own damn business.”

    “Yes, Commander.”

    McCree grunts and pushes through the door, shoving the body onto the cart with the other two.

    “Commander?” Jack manages to ask. McCree stills, but doesn’t turn around to face him.

    “Funny thing,” he says, “is that, on reinstating me as an active member, the system also reactivated my Blackwatch clearance. And, as the senior member of Blackwatch with an active status, that makes me the de facto Commander.”

    “So you used that to do this?” Jack tries not to sound judgmental - he argued for executing Los Muertos on site, so he knows he has no room to talk there - but he’s too surprised to sound approving.

    “Even if we hand them over to the government, wrapped up like presents and with all the evidence tucked under their chins, they’ll be out in less than a week. Nobody charges Los Muertos in Mexico.” McCree says. His earlier ire reveals the cracks in his composure, but makes him colder for it. “If they went back, not only do the guns start moving again, but then everyone knows how to make Overwatch freeze. Hide behind a kid, and they won’t shoot you.”

 

    Jack’s hands clench into fists as he recalls the battlefield. It comes back frozen in perfect clarity for him, the instant he and McCree both stood aiming over the heads of the hostage children while the gang leader shot the girl with the flower to prove he’d kill them all if Overwatch didn’t disarm. In the end, Roadhog had dragged the gang leader out from behind the hostages, but four children died in the ensuing chaos. Jack hadn’t taken any notice of Jesse at the time, too caught up in his own nightmare, or maybe Jesse was just that much better at keeping it buried inside.

   

    “So you elected yourself to be their executioner.”

    McCree doesn’t even flinch.

    “I elected myself to protect y'all.” He says. “The purpose of Blackwatch was to do the things that needed doing, but that the rest of y’all couldn’t dirty your hands to get done. The real good guys gotta play by the rules, Jack, but the bad guys are gonna cheat in every way they can. Some of them just need killing. When one of you stops short of crossing that big old moral event-horizon, I’ll be there on the other side to make sure the bastards don’t come around and stab you in the back for being better people than we are.” McCree takes his time with his confession, slowly winding the garrotte around his hand in a loose loop.

    “We don’t need another Blackwatch,” Jack grits out. McCree gives him a look that seems far too old for his face, even given how long they’ve known each other.

    “The sun doesn’t need a shadow, but it casts one all the same.” He says. “Might as well make sure this shadow won’t be like the last one. Don’t you worry none. I know what I’m doing.”

    Jack looks pointedly at the three corpses. Jesse follows his gaze and shrugs.

    “You wanted them dead too, Jack,” he says. “Not much moral high ground there.”

    “But I didn’t do it.” Jack shakes his head.

    “No, you didn’t.” Jesse’s voice unsheathes an edge. “You never did, because Reyes did it for you.”

    “Don’t.” Jack snaps. “Don’t you dare.”

    The tension hangs between them like razor wire, singing out of sheer sharpness in the silence. Jack thinks he might throw up.

    McCree exhales slowly like he’s trying to resist the same urge. He looks away, towards the last cell door.

    Jack reaches out and grabs his arm before Jesse can take a single step.

    “Don’t,” he says again.

    “Are you going to stop me, Jack?” Jesse asks. It should come out as a taunt, some kind of challenge to Jack’s defunct authority.

    It doesn’t. Honest curiosity strips his tone of insolence and exposes the twisted faith still clinging to his rusty conscience. Like every oblation made before him, it humbles Jack like a punch to the gut.

 

 _‘Forgive me the things I do in your name. Amen._ ’

 

    “Yes,” sits heavy on the back of his mouth, ready to fall into his stomach like a lead weight, to take the momentum of that plunge to run for Winston and bring everything to light.

 

    “No,” hangs on the tip of his tongue, ready to fly free of the chains that have always held him immobile, that have always rendered him mute and powerless behind his own icon.

 

    Neither word comes out, and Jesse’s gaze slides back to the last cell door. Jack tightens his grip, and Jesse turns back to him.

 

    “Are you going to stop me?” He asks again.

    Jack searches McCree’s face for anger or recrimination. He finds neither.

    “Yes,” he says, feeling the muscles in Jesse’s arm tense, “and no.”

    “Gotta be one or the other, Jack,” Jesse says, although confusion renders him less calm than he was a moment earlier. “Can’t have it both ways.”

    “I’m not going to stand off to the side and watch you murder an unarmed man, even if we both know he has it coming, McCree,” says Jack. “I’m going to do it for you.”

    Jesse’s face remains carefully neutral.

    “I ain’t like the ones upstairs, Jack. I don’t need you keeping my hands clean.”

    “Good, because I’ve always been shit at that.” Jack swallows the memory of Gabriel’s devotions and petitions. He’ll get no such prayers from McCree, nor does he want them. “Someone’s got to keep you from falling so deep into this mess that you forget which way is up.”

    Jesse blinks.

    “You think that someone’s you?”

    “I didn’t do enough last time.” Jack confesses. “I’m not going to make the same mistake again and watch another man ruin himself.”

    Jesse laughs.

    “Far too late to save my soul, old man.”

    “Shut up and give me the damn garrotte, Commander.”


End file.
